Show of Evil

Eight

Handsome, debonair, the perfect host, and master of Avanti!, the best Italian kitchen in the state, Guido Signatelli had but one flaw: outrageously tacky taste. Plastic grapes and dusty Chianti bottles dangled from phony grape arbours that crisscrossed the ceiling, and the booths that lined the walls were shaped like giant wine barrels. But Guido and Avanti! had survived on the strength of personality, discretion, and dazzling cuisine. Located three blocks from City Hall, Guide's - the regulars never referred to the place by its name - had become the lunch-time county seat and the legal profession dominated the fake landscape. Guide's personal pecking order was as precise as a genealogical chart. Starting at the bottom were the lobbyists, their mouths dry and their palms damp as they sucked up to everybody. They were followed by young lawyers eager to be seen as they cruised the room, hoping for a handshake; then the assistant prosecutors, huddled over out-of-the-way tables and whispering strategy; and finally the kingmakers, the politicos who greased the wheels of the city from behind closed doors in what was jokingly called 'executive session' — to avoid the state's sunshine laws. Many a shady executive decision had been made in the quiet of one of Guide's booths. On the top were the judges, the emperors of justice, each with his or her own preordained table, each patronized by his or her own mewling sycophants and each pandered to by the rest of the room.

Guido, a chunky, little man with a great mop of silver hair and a permanent smile, led Vail to the corner table. While still the state's most feared defence advocate, Vail had established the booth as his own. There he could eat, read, or talk business in relative seclusion. A few barflies hugged the long oak and marble bar and a half-dozen tables were occupied. Conversation was a low rumble.

Vail ordered a glass of red wine and settled down to read what the Trib had to say about Yancey and the bodies in the city dump, both of which were prominently displayed on page one. He didn't see Jane Venable until she appeared beside him at the table. He was genuinely surprised when he looked up and saw her and it was a moment before he reacted. He stood up, throwing the paper aside.

'I don't know what I'm doing here. I must be crazy! I guess I'm as tired of that bunch of hucksters as you are and…'

She was babbling to cover her embarrassment, obviously having second thoughts about following the man she had ignored - and who had ignored her - for a decade. Vail held a chair for her.

'You don't have to apologize to me for anything,' he said quietly. 'Ever.'

'I'm not apologizing, I'm…'

'Glad to be here?' he suggested.

She glared at him for a moment and then her consternation dissolved into a sheepish grin as she sat down opposite him.

'It has been ten years,' she said sheepishly.

'Well, we've been busy,' he said casually. 'What are you drinking?'

'I'll have a glass of champagne. If I switch to something else, I'll end up on my nose.'

'Eddie,' Vail called to a nearby waiter. 'Champagne for the lady and I'll have the same. Why don't you just bring us a bottle? Taittinger '73 would be nice.'

They sat without speaking for half a minute, then both started speaking at the same time and then stopped and laughed.

'Hell, Janie, it's time we started acting like grown-ups.

'Why not? You've been divorced for what, two years? I'm free as a bird.'

She seemed surprised that he knew anything about her personal life. 'Been keeping track of me, have you, Lawyer Vail?' she asked.

He did not answer. He was looking across the table, his eyes directly on hers. Their gazes locked for several seconds and she finally broke the stare.

'The one that got away, huh,' she said, reaching for a cigarette.

'If I thought about all the ones that got away I wouldn't have time to do anything else.'

She laughed. 'I suppose we have been acting juvenile, haven't we?'

'Maybe it's just the right time and the right place, Janie.'

'I've told you before, Martin, nobody calls me Janie.'

'Except me,' he said, taunting her. 'What're you gonna do, get me arrested? I'm the friggin' DA.'

'Somewhat reluctantly, I assume,' she answered.

'Want a job?'

'Why, are you quitting?'

He whistled softly through his teeth. 'You haven't lost your edge, I see. So why do you suppose we're sitting here, Janie?'

She shrugged. 'We're both forty…? she suggested.

'Plus,' he added ruefully.

'We both hate cocktail parties?'

'We both hate lawyers?'

'Good one,' she said.

'Or maybe we're both just lonelier than hell.'

'I can only speak for myself,' he said. 'I've missed you. Me and every other male who ever saw you in a courtroom. You really turned it all on. You were a real dazzler - the Hope diamond of the Cook County Courthouse. Don't you miss it? The roar of the courtroom, the smell of the crowd?'

'I still have my days in court.'

'Not like the old days. Defending polluters in civil cases really ain't the same.'

'Come on, Vail, I did one.'

'And won, unfortunately.'

'Hey…' she started, anger creeping into her tone.

'Sorry,' he said hurriedly. 'I'll get off the soapbox.'

She shrugged. 'Maybe I'm a little too touchy on the subject. I've always been curious about something I heard. Did they really clean your tank back when you were starting out? Is that true?'

'Oh, yeah,' he said, 'they whipped my ass good. The Chamber of Commerce sold everyone down the river, the newspaper lied to them, the bigshots bought off the judges, they brought in the heaviest, ball-busting lawyers they could find from the big town, and they turned a paradise into a killing ground. All I got out of it was a good lesson.'

'What was that?'

'It's dangerous to be blinded by idealism. The minute the hyenas find out you have integrity, they bring on their assassins in silk suits.'

'You haven't done badly. Blowing off one of the most respected banks in the city for money laundering, shutting down two chemical companies, busting half the city council for being on the sleeve. I call that getting even.'

'It's a start,' he said, and changed the subject, focusing the conversation back on them. 'What I miss are our old skirmishes, even after ten years.'

'There's something to be said for good, old-fashioned cutthroat competition.'

'You ought to know.'

'Look who's talking.'

She raised her glass and offered a toast to cutthroat competition. Their eyes locked again and this time she didn't break the stare.

'Janie,' he said, 'just how hungry are you?'

She slouched back in the booth and looked at the ceiling and closed her eyes and shook her head ever so slightly, sighed, and peered down her long nose at him.

'Cocktail parties always did ruin my appetite,' she said.

She was seeing a side of Vail he had never revealed to her before, a vulnerability, a romantic flair. He had brought home the bottle of chilled Taittinger after informing Guido that they had changed their mind about dinner. She had always been attracted to Vail, even in the old days, but had never admitted it to herself, dispelling her feelings as a combination of admiration and fear of his talent. Now, standing in his living room, watching him light the fire, she realized how much she wanted him and began to wonder if she had made a mistake. Was she rushing into something? A one-night stand? Would it turn into one of those awkward mistakes where she would awaken in the morning with a sexual hangover? But when he stood up and faced her, her fears vanished, washed away in another rush of desire. He took off her coat and tossed it over the sofa and went into the kitchen to get wineglasses.

She looked around the apartment. It was a large two-bedroom, high enough to have a nice view of the city but not ostentatious. One of the bedrooms had been converted into an office, a cluttered room of books filled with paper place markers, files stacked in the corners, magazines piled up, most of them with their wrappers still on them, scraps of notes, and newspaper clippings. A blue light glowed from the bathroom and she peered in.

It had been converted into a minigreenhouse. A six-foot-long zinc-lined sink ran along one wall, with taps and tubes running from the bathroom sink. Pots of flowers crowded the bathtub. A row of grow lights plugged into an automatic timer created the illusion of daylight twelve hours a day. Beneath the lights were bunches of small, delicate blue flowers surrounded by fernlike leaves. On the other side of the narrow room was a small plastic-covered cubicle, its sides misty with manmade dew. Through its opaque sides, she could see splashes of colour from other flowers.

She looked around the small room. 'What do you know, a closet horticulturist,' she said, half aloud.

'They're called bluebells,' he said from behind her.

She whirled around, startled, and caught her breath. 'I'm sorry. I was snooping.'

He handed her a tulip glass bubbling with champagne. 'Belles as in beautiful young ladies. They're winter flowers. Grew wild along the banks of the river where I grew up. I used to pick them and take them home to my mom and she'd put them on the piano and sometimes I'd hear her talking to them. "This is Chopin," she'd say and then play for them.'

'She sounds lovely.'

'She was. She died when I was in the eighth grade.'

'I'm sorry.'

'Long time ago.'

Her anxiety was slowly transforming back to desire. Her mouth got a little drier and she took another sip of champagne. Oddly, there was only one photograph in the bedroom, a grim, dark, foreboding picture of a murky colony of industrial plants, partially obscured by a man-made fog of steam and dirty smoke. They appeared as one long, grey mass with stacks spewing black smoke that rose to an ominous tumour of low-lying, polluted clouds hovering over the disgusting spectacle. In the foreground a scummy river with steam lurking around its edges vaguely reflected the despondent scene.

'Welcome to Rainbow Flats. Believe it or not, I used to swim in that river when I was kid.'

'So that's where they got you,' she said.

'Yeah. Ironic, isn't it? The Chamber of Commerce calls that an industrial park. I used to think a park was a cheerful place where kids play. The spin doctors destroyed that illusion.'

'Why keep a picture of it?'

'So I never get complacent.'

'I can't imagine you being complacent about anything.' She slipped off her shoes as they walked back into the living room. 'Hope you don't mind, my feet are killing me.'

'Sit down. I also give great foot.'

'Foot?'

'Best foot massage this side of Sweden.'

She sat down on the sofa and leaned back against soft, down pillows. He took one foot in both hands, first rubbing it gently, then squeezing harder, kneading his fingers into her instep. The massage was like electricity being transmitted up between her legs along the silken strands of her panty hose. She closed her eyes. Her breath was growing shorter, her pulse quickening. The champagne kicked in.

'Very good foot,' she whispered.

He slid his hand along her silken leg slowly, moving up to her calf, then to the edge of her thigh. She sat up suddenly, realizing she was completely out of breath.

'Need to stand up for a minute,' she said. She got up and walked to the fireplace. He followed her.

'Marty…' she started to say, but he turned her to him, took her face in both hands, and kissed her. She surrendered, responding hungrily, her mouth linked to his, their lips and tongues frantically exploring, their bodies crushed together. The allure of each to the other was hypnotic. His hands moved down her sides, around to her back, caressed her tight buttocks, then slid tentatively down the outside of her legs, urging her against him. One hand moved to the inside of her thigh, his forearm pressed between her legs, then he moved his hand higher, caressed the smooth lip of her panty hose, his fingers barely touching her. She whimpered softly, moved against his exploring fingertips and pressed against his hand, and he began to stroke her. He kissed her ears, the small place in her throat, and she responded by putting her hand behind his head and moving it slowly down to her breasts. Pent-up denial exploded. They began frantically undressing each other without ever losing the cadence of the mutual seduction, his hand moving in slight, wet circles, exploring every pore of her. He gasped for breath as she laid her hand over his exploring fingertips, guiding them. He reached behind her with his other hand and unzipped her dress. She pressed against him, taunting him, keeping the dress from falling, then pressed the flat of her hand to his stomach, slid it across the hard muscles, her thumb encircling his navel. She slid her fingers under his belt, slid her hand down until she felt him rising to meet it.

She leaned back. The dress slipped slowly down, hung for a moment on her hard nipples, then slipped over her breasts and down to her hips. They kept kissing, their eyes closed, as their hands explored each other. Their lips still locked together, she pressed his hand with hers, moved it slowly to her stomach and then down until it was between her legs, and then she pressed it hard against her and began moving it up and down, then she turned her hand, pressing the back of it against the back of his until they were stroking each other in perfect rhythm. She could feel him growing and she let her free hand glide down his back, caressing his buttocks. The tips of their nipples touched and she moved closer, felt him growing hard against her, moving her body under his fingers, tracing his hard muscle with a featherlike touch.

She ground her head into his shoulder, her muscles trembling as he continued to massage her faster and faster, and she arched her back slightly and for several minutes they stood together, moving slowly to the rhythm of her sighs.

'My God,' he whispered into her mouth, 'slow down.'

'I can't,' she whispered. 'C-can't!' She began to grind against his hand, began stroking him faster, and he began to move with her hand. She was trembling now; she sucked in her breath and rose on her toes and he could feel her trigger getting harder and wetter under his fingers until she cried out, thrusting herself against his hand, her legs trembling with spasms.

He lowered her to the floor and lay down beside her. Her arms fell away. He was on top of her, leaning over her, his eyes closed, his biceps twitching, and she guided him into her. He took in a breath and held it, then began thrusting into her. She reached up with both arms, wrapped them around his neck, and rolled him over so that she was on top of him, sliding her hard nipples up and down his chest, straddling him, then rising slightly, she guided him back into her and leaning forward trapped his cries with her mouth. Hypnotized, they made love, stopped, held back, trembling, until they could not resist the demand any longer, until the tension was no longer bearable. He felt her wet muscles close around him. He slid his hand down between their stomachs, felt her grow even harder as he stroked her. She stiffened, stopped breathing for several seconds, then she thrust herself down on him and cried out and began to shudder, and her response was so overwhelming that all his senses spun crazily out of control. He felt a spasm, then another, and another, and still another, before he exploded.

She felt electrified, lost in time and space, and the waves began to build again.

'Oh God,' she cried, falling down across him and stretching out her long legs, tightening them and keeping them trapped while they kissed until, finally, she came again.

'Ooooh,' she slowly mumbled several times.

He lay under her, arms enfolding her, lightly scratching her back as they regained their breath, and then in a frenzied reprise, she felt him slide deeper inside her and then out, slipping against her, and she began to tighten again. Her hair fell across his face as she twisted her head from side to side, both moaning in unison as their dance built and built, until she cried out, sitting up on him, moving up and down, then she fell back against his chest. They lay quietly for a moment while her muscles tightened and loosened with her own contractions. Her mouth was against his ear and he listened as she slowly regained her breath and finally she slid first one leg, then the other, down until she was stretched out full above him.

She lifted her head until they were almost nose to nose and she swept the tip of her tongue across his upper lip.

'God,' he whispered, still breathless, 'why did we wait so long?'

She slid off him, lying beside him with one leg over his. He put his arm around her and they lay there for several minutes watching the fire.

'Whatever happened to that gorgeous woman who worked for you,' she said, breaking the silence.

'Naomi Chance?'

'Was that her name? That's a lovely name.'

'She still works for me. You've got out of touch.'

'People used to talk about you two.'

She rolled over on her back, raised one leg up, and moved slightly so that he had a taunting view of her naked body.

'Did you two ever have a thing?' she asked.

He held up a single finger.

'Once. You did it once?'

He nodded. 'One night a very long time ago. She said she didn't want to keep it up, that it would ruin our professional relationship.'

Jane leaned over and bit his big toe, very lightly. 'She was nuts,' she said.

'Are you getting hungry?' he asked.

She stroked her saliva off his toe with her palm and fingers. 'I could eat a little something.'

'Will champagne and cheese do?'

'For starters. Any candles?'

'If they haven't turned to dust by now.'

'Candles, wine, and cheese. How elegant.'

'Got your appetite back, huh?'

'Oh yes,' she said softly.

She watched him as he walked to the kitchen. He had a tight, hard, rather lean body. She liked that. Not an ounce of fat, but no steroid muscles either, and a very attentive lover who knew all the buttons to push and all the doors to open. But she had suspected as much. Vail did everything with passion.

He came back in a minute or two with fresh wineglasses dangling between his fingers, a box of stone-wheat thins, and a wedge of Brie cheese in one hand and two candles in the other. He dumped the burned-out cigarette butts out of a large ashtray, lit a candle, and dripped wax into a hot pool in the ashtray's centre. She watched intently as he twisted the candle into the pool, holding it while the wax hardened around its smooth base. He opened the package of Brie and, with his little finger, scooped out a mound from under the hard crust and held it out to her. She put his whole finger in her mouth and sucked off the cheese.

The phone rang.

'Oh sweet Jesus,' he moaned.

He tried to ignore it, but after five rings he knew Stenner was not to be denied. The man knew he was home and why.

'Shit, shit, shit,' he growled, and finally snatched up the receiver. 'Major, I'm not home at this time. If you'll leave a - '

'John Farrell Delaney.'

A pause. 'What about him?'

'He's lying in the middle of a penthouse on Lake View Drive wearing two .38-calibre slugs and nothing else. Either shot would have killed him.'

'You son of a bitch.'

'Ten minutes? Or do you need to take a shower?'

Vail thought he heard a snicker in Stenner's voice. He ignored the remark.

'Been over there yet?'

'Shock called me. What I just told you is all I know.'

'Ten minutes,' Vail said in surrender.

'I'm down front waiting.'

'I should've known.'

He hung up. She stared at him, still admiring his naked body as he starred to dress. 'You don't have to go home,' she purred. 'Why don't you spend the night?'

'Very funny,' he muttered. 'It's a homicide.'

'Not very flattering.'

'What?'

'Screwing my brains out and then leaving me for a corpse.'

He pulled up his pants and angrily jerked up the zipper. 'Midnight forays in the human jungle.'

'As I recall, there were about two thousand homicides last year. Did you get out of bed for all of them?'

'They didn't all happen at night,' he said, looking for one of his shoes.

She sat up and groped for a cigarette.

'Shall I wait up for you?' she asked, flapping her eyelids at him like a silent-screen vamp.

'Didn't this ever happen when you were a prosecutor?' he asked.

She shook her head very slowly. 'I only had one phone and I unplugged it.'

'Suppose it was something big?' he said, putting on his socks and loafers.

She blew out a slow stream of smoke. Curiosity crept into her voice. 'How big?'

'Veeery, veeeery big.'

'Where are you going?' she asked suspiciously.

He waved her off. 'It was a rhetorical question, Janie.'

'No, no, you're not getting away with that, Vail. What happened? Where are you going at…' she looked at the clock - 'eleven-thirty at night?'

'John Farrell Delaney pique your interest?'

She straightened up when he said the name, surprise rounding her eyes. 'What about him?'

He looked at her, smiled, and held a finger over his lips.

'He did something! Did he do… No! Something was done to him.'

A brief vision from the past flashed through Vail's mind. The Judge and Vail, facing each other across his big desk, fingers on silver dollars, as they played mind games.

'It's classified at this point, Jane. You know I can't - '

'Don't give me that shit, Martin Vail. Ever hear of date rape? Speak up or I'll start screaming.'

'You wouldn't dare.'

'He's dead, isn't he?' She leaned over until she as an inch from his face. 'Is he dead, Marty?'

Vail nodded. 'Somebody popped two shots in his ugly, old heart.'

'Wooow!' she said slowly. 'Somebody hit Delaney? Oh, you do have a problem, Mr DA. We may be the only two people in the city that don't have a good reason to kill the bastard. You don't, do you?'

'No, I always get his pimp, Firestone,' Vail said. He stood up, dressed in his tuxedo but without the tie, and put on his coat. 'I never had much to do with Mr Delaney.'

'You're lucky. Well, I'll forgive you for abandoning me, but only if you promise to give me all the gory details when you get back. This is going to be the hottest gossip in town tomorrow.'

He leaned over and kissed her on the lips.

'If I'm not here when you leave, lock the door behind you.'

'Don't turn this into something cheap,' she whispered with a smile, and kissed him back.